


Loose Lips

by ProgramasaurusRex



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 01:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14631117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProgramasaurusRex/pseuds/ProgramasaurusRex
Summary: After Gilfoyle finds out Dinesh betrayed him to the company mole, the two have a conversation about trust.





	Loose Lips

Gilfoyle can only imagine the expressions flying across Dinesh's face when he finds out his new friend Jeff is actually a spy. The disbelief, the confusion, and then on to the deeper pools of hurt and shame. The loathing and the self loathing fighting for dominance. Which is worse, to be the fooler or the fooled?

Gilfoyle can only imagine because he is currently wandering around the room punching holes in things, looking anywhere but at Dinesh.

He would be all over this normally. Richard is here, and Jared is here, and Jeff the Hooli spy is here, all crowded around, watching Dinesh absorb the twin blows of realizing he is the moron who willingly gave up the company's secrets to the mole and realizing one of his few friends was lying to him the whole time. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

The problem is, this isn't exactly harmless fun. Dinesh nearly ruined him. And it wasn't through some hilarious blunder this time. He told some random guy one of Gilfoyle's most dangerous secrets.

Gilfoyle is used to despising Dinesh for his cowardice and dishonesty, venial sins, all the better to make Gilfoyle look good in comparison. But he's always felt a sense of safety with Dinesh. Like maybe it's okay to chat with him about personal stuff. Once in a blue moon. Not that he needs to do so, he's not some idiotic teenage girl, but when the pressure of being inside his own head begins to build under the weight of unpleasant thoughts, sometimes he looks up and Dinesh is there, and Gilfoyle mumbles something cryptic about his problems, and it's not exactly a friendship but it's kind of like the nicotine patch equivalent, enough to get him through the day. He might even be willing to admit that he's missed having the opportunity to be alone with Dinesh casually these past few weeks after moving out of the house.

And now? Well, Dinesh has betrayed him. To acknowledge this is to acknowledge also that the two of them used to have some expectation of ... some understanding that ... an unwritten line they'd never crossed. The kitchen table confidences had always stayed between them. Mild to moderate mutual sabotage on the prank level was allowed, but telling secrets was right out.

This wasn't a trivial secret either. Gilfoyle's criminal history could have ruined the company and jailed Gilfoyle. But Dinesh didn't know Jeff was the mole of course. Right? He couldn't possibly have done it on purpose, could he? Did he really care so little for Gilfoyle that he didn't care about putting him away for five to ten years?

Neither of them is ready to deal with anything that heavy. 

So he gives Dinesh a little privacy, knowing Dinesh might retract into the floor right now if he had to deal with all of his new problems and Gilfoyle giving him shit about them, too. Besides, a slight flicker of guilt has stirred in Gilfoyle. None of this would have happened if he hadn't pushed Dinesh away.

There were many reasons why Gilfoyle did not invite Dinesh to be his roommate when they moved out. For one, he enjoyed having something Dinesh didn't. For another, he'd never lived alone, never been able to afford it, and he quite liked the idea of finally getting to walk around in the nude as much as he liked. A place that was only his, where he could escape the idiocy of the world and gain the precious hours of solitude he required.

Also, to extend such an offer to Dinesh would have implied a very formal and public declaration of friendship.

Dinesh probably hadn't expected it, exactly, but the thought must have crossed his mind. It was just that for either of them to suggest it aloud would have been monumentally risky. Gilfoyle couldn't bring himself to do it, and Dinesh couldn't either.

Once they were living apart, Gilfoyle had considered asking him to come over to play video games. But it was the same risk in miniature. Any social invitation that required a journey of more than ten steps across the living room was just too awkward. So they'd been spending a lot less time together lately. In fact, Gilfoyle had been spending a lot less time with people in general.

Dinesh looks up as Gilfoyle drills a hole in his laptop, too morose even to put up much of a fight.

"But I never even mentioned the fridges to Jeff. Why would I do that?" Dinesh asks innocently.

"Yeah you did," says Jeff tonelessly. "You probably just don't remember because you were so drunk. You spent like an hour ranting about Gilfoyle. There's clearly some unresolved resentment between the two of you that you need to either fight or fuck your way through."

Gilfoyle relaxes a little. So it wasn't deliberate sabotage at least. Just one more fuckup. And Dinesh is obviously feeling it.

Still though. Dinesh told someone a secret about him. He can't help but worry about what other secrets may have slipped out. He feels a bit silly, because after all, a secret that could embarrass him can't really compare to a secret that could have gotten him a knock on the door from the feds. Now that he's safe from the latter, though, he finds that he does care. Such is his personality that he would almost prefer to get carted off to prison for a difficult and glamorous bit of hacking, spitting on the pigs and pulling rakishly at his handcuffs the whole journey to the squad car. It's sort of a pet fantasy really.

But if he told Jeff that Gilfoyle was an expert seamstress, because throwing away your torn clothes when you can't figure out a basic life skill is incredibly capitalist? Or that he read all eight Artemis Fowl books in the armchairs at Borders because he was afraid his roommates would give him shit for it if he brought them home? Or that he still feels like crap every single time his mom lectures him about his career choices, even though she knows nothing about computers?

He doesn't remember actually telling Dinesh about any of these things. Dinesh was just there for them somehow. So he can't really claim Dinesh broke any sort of real or implied contract if he told someone about them. Gilfoyle never asked him not to tell people about anything he'd done, even the fridges. Such a request implied the weakness of Caring What Other People Thought. But he did care. And he'd assumed that Dinesh knew he did.

"You probably shouldn't stay in this apartment with him anymore," Gilfoyle tells Dinesh, trying to project calmness he didn't feel. "You talk in your sleep sometimes."

"Well," says Jared, looking expectantly at Gilfoyle, "my sofa bed is currently and happily occupied, so ..."

Gilfoyle shrugs as if annoyed. "All right, Brutus stays with me for the time being."

Dinesh leaves the room to go pack a bag. Also, probably, to cry.

An hour later, Dinesh is sitting hunched over on Gilfoyle's couch, clad in Luigi and Mario pajama pants, unable to meet Gilfoyle's eyes.

"What else did you tell him?" Gilfoyle asks quietly.

Dinesh looks as if he is about to fight just on reflex, then remembers he's an asshole.

"I can't remember," he admits. "I mean, you're not going to jail over the refrigerators, right?"

"No thanks to you," says Gilfoyle. "I was just curious what other aspects of my personal life you divulged to your new best buddy during your little slumber party."

Dinesh looks at Gilfoyle in surprise. "Oh, 'new' best buddy, is it? Are you actually jealous?"

"Jealous that someone who was paid to sink ships with your loose lips pretended to be your friend for a few days? No," says Gilfoyle, pulling at the sleeves of his thermal shirt. "I am slightly surprised at the ease with which you discarded my trust in you, but given your history, I should not be." He blinks in exhaustion. "I am mostly angry with myself for being foolish enough to entrust you with as much damning information as I have."

The full weight of what he has done appears to hit Dinesh, passing a shadow over his face, from eyes to mouth to shoulders, pulling his hands in to settle around his arms.

With quiet sincerity, he says, "I wasn't trying to get you thrown in jail."

Gilfoyle crosses the room and pulls a spare blanket from a cardboard box that he hasn't unpacked yet.

"Your desperation to make a friend nearly resulted in my arrest, deportation, and five to ten years languishing in a sub zero prison cell in Toronto," he says.

Dinesh winces. "Fuck," he says. "Gilfoyle ... I know we fight a lot, but I didn't want -- that. I swear I didn't."

"I didn't say you did it on purpose," said Gilfoyle. "I make it a point never to underestimate your incompetence."

Dinesh makes a fist. "I'm sorry," he says.

Gilfoyle is about to tell him two things: 1) He should fucking hope Dinesh is sorry, and 2) he doesn't believe in apologies because they don't change anything. But to his surprise, he discovers that sometimes an apology can matter quite a bit. He can't remember such a thing ever happening before for any reason, not even the time Dinesh borrowed his car and then backed it into the garage door. It's not the first time Gilfoyle has received an apology, and in fact Jared apologizes to him daily. But not Dinesh. That's probably why this particular apology is worth so much to him.

The implications are myriad. For Dinesh, king of bluster, to humble himself in this way before Gilfoyle, suggests a level of mutual respect and caring that he wasn't sure he and Dinesh would ever reach. He discovers that this makes him happy, very happy indeed. And not even in a mean way where he's enjoying Dinesh's pain, a genuinely warm and fuzzy way. He had no idea he wanted this until now.

Gilfoyle sits down next to him on the couch, wraps the blanket gently around Dinesh's shoulders, and adopts the tone he only ever uses with his friend when Dinesh is already at rock bottom.

"All is forgiven," he says.

Dinesh pulls the blanket tighter around himself and risks a look at him.

"Really?"

If it were anyone else who told a spy about Gilfoyle's criminal history, Gilfoyle would be plotting revenge already. He isn't sure why he doesn't feel that way about Dinesh. Something about the way it feels sitting on the couch with him after a week apart, like he's been missing this.

"Yeah," Gilfoyle says. "In the future, though, let's keep the things that happen between us to ourselves."

"I promise," says Dinesh solemnly.

In the morning, Dinesh makes the two of them eggs. They are runny. Gilfoyle eats his anyway.


End file.
